Viable Solar Fuel Production in Focus

7th February, 2018: The Caltech engineers have
identified mechanism behind a catalyst that is widely used in water-splitting
experiments, which yields hydrogen as a by-product, which opens the door to economically
viable solar-fuel production in the next few years.

Fuel cells are researched in detail world over with focus on
developing suitable catalyst that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using
only sunlight. Hydrogen thus produced was used in power motor vehicles, plants,
and fuel cells. It incurs no carbon-footprint as the only thing produced in the
process is water.

The catalyst generally used for the purpose was made of
layers of nickel and iron. The way these catalysts work was not fully known.
Most researchers made nickel layers responsible for the water- splitting
ability.

However, the new results suggest that nickel is not the
important component of the catalyst, rather iron! The results are published in
the Journal of Sustainable-energy Research.

“Our experimentally supported mechanism is very different
than what was proposed,” says Hunter, first author of a paper. “Now we can
start making changes to this material to improve it.”

Gray, whose work has focused on solar fuels for decades, says
the discovery could be a “game changer” for the field.

“This will alert people worldwide that iron is particularly
good for this kind of catalysis,” he says. “I wouldn’t be at all shocked if
people start using these catalysts in commercial applications in four or five years.”